Gunnar Ekelöf

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Swedish poet and essayist, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century in the Nordic countries. Ekelöf started as a modernist under the influence of French surrealism, but mostly he did not follow fashionable literary currents. An alchemist of words, Ekelöf followed his visions, and searched for inner, often mystical truths – “ändå tvingas jag söka / detta förlorade något, / osynligt, outsägligt, / detta som alltid / går mina känslor förbi.” (from ‘Ökenstämningar’) His last years Ekelöf spent with his most ambitious work, the “Byzantine trilogy” – a product of his long-time interest in the history and cultures of the Near East.

Contents

Life and works

Gunnar Ekelöf has been described as Sweden's first surrealist poet; he made his debut with the collection sent på jorden ("late on earth") in 1932, a work (written during an extended stay in Paris in 1929-30) that was too unconventional to become widely appreciated and which the author described as capturing a period of suicidal thoughts and apocalyptic moods.[1] It was, in a sense, an act of literary revolt akin to Edith Södergran's Septemberlyran a dozen years earlier. While not disavowing his debut, Ekelöf moved towards romanticism and received better reviews for his second poetry collection Dedikation (1934). Both of his first two volumes are strongly influenced by surrealism and show a violent, at times feverish torrent of images, deliberate breakdown of ordered syntax and traditional poetic language and a defiant spirit bordering on anarchism ("cut your belly cut your belly and don't think of any tomorrow" runs the black humorous refrain of a poem called "fanfare" in sent på jorden, which collection does away with the use of upper case letters). This defiant outsiderhood was grounded in his person; though he came from an upper-class background, Ekelöf had never felt committed to it - his father had been mentally ill and when his mother remarried, Ekelöf strongly disapproved of his stepfather and, by extension, of his mother who had let him in: he became a loner and a rebel already in his teens - and would never feel at ease with the mores of the established upper and middle classes or with their inhibitions and, as he perceived it, hypocrisy and back-scratching. Swedish critic Anders Olsson described Ekelöf's turn to poetry as a choice of "the only utterance that doesn't expurge the contradictions and empty spaces of language and of the mind".[2]

Färjesång (1941), a finely expressed blend of romanticism, surrealism, and the dark clouds of the ongoing Second World War spelled a mark of maturity and would influence later Swedish poets, as would Ekelöf's debut over time. From this point on, his transformations of style and imagery, his deep familiarity with a wide array of literary idioms, stretching far beyond modern writing, and an almost Bob Dylan-like propensity to make fresh departures in his writing and challenge critics' readings of his work in order to keep true to it, made him one of the most influential and, in time, widely read of Scandinavian modernist poets, a kind of father figure and challenging and inspiring model for many later writers not just in Sweden but also in Denmark and Norway. He has been translated into many languages and is a classic of 20th-century Swedish poetry.

Legacy

He is remembered as being one of the first Surrealist poets of Sweden.

On his 103rd birthday, 40 Swedish poetry enthusiasts gathered in Salihli. Together with the deputy mayor they honored Ekelöfs legacy in the city where he became most ardently admiring of in a visit in 1965, and has portrayed in several poems. In his will he detailed that he wished to be cremated and his ashes spread over the Sard stream in Salihli. A bust of Ekelöf by Gürdal Duyar was intended to be placed at this location, however this was never realized and it now waits in the garden of the Swedish Embassy in Istanbul for its chance to be brought to its true home.[3][4][5]

Selected bibliography

In Swedish:

sent på jorden "late on earth", poems (1932) (title in lower case lettering; this is retained in all reprints)

Fransk surrealism "French Surrealism", translations (1933)

Dedikation "Dedication", poems (1934)

Hundra år modern fransk dikt "100 Years of Modern French Poetry", translations (1934)

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The House of World Poets has been established in 2006 with the supports of Ahmad Shamlou’s official website as an independent and nonprofit project relying on individual donations and has been able to involve more than 50 associate editors and translators to publish original poetry translations from across the world and languages.
After Islamic Revolution, Iranian modern poetry has suffered from a great absence of new voices due to the governmental censorship and restrictions. Since this ideological censorship and restriction has affected traditional book publishing, internet has become the only free sphere that makes an alternative voice to be heard by Iranian young generation.